i think the biggest reason kataang never sat right with me is because it wasn’t really satisfying for either of their individual arcs.

Aang always seemed to be more infatuated with katara than actually in love with her. Aang thought she was beautiful and strong, and she spends all of her time helping him train and fight. she protects him and cares for him, of course he has a crush on her. but it always seems like a childish desire, even in the 3rd season. aang should have let go of katara in the final fight, it felt like kind of a cop out to hit that rock. aang spends the whole series at war with himself over being the avatar, something he never wanted but was his destiny nonetheless. it would have been more satisfying (in my opinion) to see him fully accept the role of avatar at the end of the show, and know he was content with his destiny. Aang had so much responsibility at both the avatar and the last airbender, as well as so much trauma from spending his first year conscious after being frozen for 100 years immediately fighting and training in the war. for him to end the show in a relationship, and achieving that relationship being his ultimate happy ending just seemed very shallow for everything he had gone through.

for katara, i really feel like she settled. and i’m not going to bring any other ship into this, because there are pros and cons to all of them, so don’t take this as comparing ships or trying to say one is better than the other.

Aang did not understand nor accept katara. to not understand someone is one thing, but aang would not try to even accept katara if her feelings were vengeful, angry, etc. he preached forgiveness and being the bigger person, but that is not what katara needed from him. aang could never be a comfort to her because he couldn’t accept wanting revenge and holding grudges were valid feelings to have when you suffered what she did. and of all the people in the show, aang SHOULD be the one who understands the most. he is the last airbender, she is the last waterbender in the southern water tribe. the survivors guilt weighs heavily on them both. when aang lashes out in the avatar state, it is always katara who bring him down to earth, just by being there! but aang could never do that for katara. he had to turn it into a moral lesson, he could not help but preach to her when all she needed was for him to be there with her while she got her anger out. zuko did not have to do anything to comfort or convince katara not to give into her anger and take someone’s life. he just had to be there, to back her up and not judge her. she made the choice to leave on her own. she had to make that choice on her own, and aang was just not emotionally mature enough to let her do that. and he still wasn’t able to comprehend why she would let him live if she didn’t forgive him. katara wasn’t raised a pacifist like him. she raised herself, and her older brother. she had to be strong, and it took her looking her mother’s murderer in the eyes to realize that she didn’t have to kill him to be stronger than him. she didn’t need to kill him to make sure he would never hurt anyone again, he was already incapable. it’s the same choice aang made when he took ozai’s bending.

basically the point of this ramble is that i think katara deserved someone who could put her first, who could understand her, and who wouldn’t judge her anger. and aang is none of those things. he is the avatar, and katara would spend her whole life fulfilling HIS mission to bring balance. she was put into the role of caregiver over and over again. it was natural to her at that point, but i think she deserved to be selfish in at least one of her relationships.

edit: i’m not tagging this anti-kataang bc i’m not an anti. this is literally just me wishing that he had grown up a little and showed the same emotional maturity towards katara that she showed him

lolll i... just read an odd post about 'sex pollen tropes' and described Vulcan shit as fuck or die. Which ISN'T incorrect but leaves out the very important THIRD OPTION OF KILL.

LIKE, I love you all, but it's not just fuck or die. It's fuck, die, or kill. I know we all haha joke about them ""rolling around in the sand"" and how that ""relieved"" spock of the bloodlust. But it DIDN'T. He'd effectually gone through the motions of KILLING KIRK. Which... unless you want to go down some kink road I'm not about to head down, ISN'T SEXY. ISN'T EVEN SEX.

so like idk, if ur gonna write a dissertation about the diff issues w aces/allos in this setup (which like, why hurt urself brah) remember that MURDER IS APPARENTLY AN OPTION IN THIS ALREADY RIDIC SETUP. And that maybe modern sex pollen shit isn't at all like vulcan weirdness

loll i guess 1 the attempt to fit aces/allos needs in an already dubious consent situation was stressing me out and 2 STAR TREK SAID MURDER IS OKAY

One fun thing I like to do to make comics more enjoyable is to figure out ways to make scenes that to me seem ooc feel more in character. One good example I have for this is with Jason.

For this what happened was there were two scenes where I didn’t really like how Jason was acting, and when I realized what he did in both scenes was pretty similar, I decided to find a new and better way to interpret them.

The first of these is this scene from Grayson #12 where Jason hits Dick and yells at him for faking his death despite the fact this is all Bruce’s fault.

The second is the part in Pennyworth R.I.P. when Jason blames Damian for Alfred dying. Again. Despite the fact that the blame for what happened goes more to Bruce.

Both of these scenes annoyed me when I first read them because Jason of all people should understand that these things were Bruce’s fault. In both cases he even knows that Bruce was the one who told Dick and Damian to do the thing that Jason is upset about. So it was really annoying that the writers would make him blame Damian and Dick.

But then I realized one thing in common with each scene is that Bruce isn’t actually present when Jason makes these accusations. In the first scene Bruce has amnesia, so even if he wanted to, he can’t go off and yell at him because Bruce wouldn’t know what he was getting yelled at for. And they weren’t allowed to interact with him about that stuff anyways. In the second Bruce simply just hasn’t arrived to their little get together yet.

I think I’ve talked about this before in another post, but how I see Jason’s anger in most cases is as a defense mechanism. So he expresses his emotions with anger. I can’t think of specific issues off the top of my head right now, but I remember there being times where Jason would say something awful to somebody, but in his thoughts he’s thinking the exact opposite. He’s just lashing out. Usually because he has some emotion he’s feeling, but he can’t let anybody know.

Jason can get pretty emotional, so of course the death of his grandfather figure and the fake death and return of his older brother would make those emotions come out. Just in his own way of expressing them.

So using all this, I reinterpreted both of these scenes as Jason lashing out at the closest person he could find responsible. He needed somebody he could blame. Since Bruce wasn’t there he lashed out at Dick and Damian instead even though they’re not at fault for either of their situations. Jason doesn’t necessarily mean what he’s saying, but he’s upset and that’s how he’s showing it. And I’m not using this to excuse Jason’s actions because it’s still really bad on his part. But it fits more in line with how I personally interpret his character if I look at it this way. It’s still a flaw for him, but it’s one that I think adds to his character.

It’s obviously not what the writers intended in either of these scenes, but I just thought it was a fun way to look at it, and it makes the scenes more tolerable.

A Very Controversial Opinion...

But I honestly do not get the complete and utter support for Obi-Wan while people trash others who have dared to challenge him and his opinions such as Qui-Gon and Anakin. Obi-Wan is not perfect and I don’t get why people are trying to pretend he is. He’s actually got serious flaws too.

Obi-Wan is a good character, yes, but he has his shortcomings too. Watching Episode I as an adult these days only made me notice that Obi-Wan is not nice to Anakin from the moment they met despite having no reason to be mean, even badmouthing him while he’s standing *right there* and only takes him on as a Padawan because Qui-Gon asked him to. Hell, I think the very first time he calls Anakin by his name and not “the boy” or “pathetic life form” is at the end of the movie. The Council had decided Anakin had the potential to be dangerous despite only being nine-years-old so Obi-Wan didn’t question, and just followed their word, even getting mad at Qui-Gon for not listening too at one point. He tries to rebuke his own MASTER! But Qui-Gon never treated him the way Obi-Wan treats Anakin.

I also don’t stick with the headcanon floating around that Qui-Gon “just threw Obi-Wan to the wolves” so he could train Anakin instead. Qui-Gon is no fool and its clear that Obi-Wan WAS ready for the trials. He killed a freaking Sith who was very strong(and a badass) not long after that meeting for god’s sake. Granted, it seems he had to use his anger to do so, but he did even though using anger like that is something he scolds Anakin for regularly. Qui-Gon was not “trying to ditch him” and the fact that Maul actually survived doesn’t matter. Obi-Wan still beat him.

I’ll argue that Obi-Wan had numerous chances to prevent Anakin’s Fall but he didn’t listen most of the time, preached the Code at him despite breaking it himself, and even broke Anakin’s trust FIRST. He is too much of a stickler for rules and didn’t try to understand Anakin’s issues which resulted from his background as a slave when he also had to leave his mother behind at only nine years old. Anakin also implies that worse than that happened but he got NO help from anyone, including Obi-Wan in dealing with it. It’s not even just Obi-Wan really, it can be argued that the entire Jedi Order let Anakin down, starting with NO ONE questioning Palpatine’s interest in him and stopping their meetings. It took 13 years of conditioning and manipulation for Palpatine to finally push Anakin over the edge, but before this happened, Anakin had gone to Obi-Wan, Padme and even YODA but was brushed off by ALL THREE. Yet Padme and Obi-Wan get the support. They both claim to love him but both either couldn’t see or refused to see that he was struggling. All they saw was the Hero and Face of the Republic army. (Question: has Obi-Wan ever told Anakin he loved him to his FACE before the Mustafar fight? Could’ve made a difference if not. Probably.)

A bit dramatic, but if you think about it, the Jedi were treating Anakin as much of a slave as he was on Tatooine. Without the bomb of course but one could make the argument that Qui-Gon took him from one form of slavery to another. I know we all love the Ani-Obi brotherhood but the fact is, Obi-Wan has let him down several times, and yes the opposite happened too, and the light side lost the war against the Sith long before Episode III. They lost as soon as Qui-Gon was killed by Maul. Obi-Wan is not necessarily guilty of THIS, he’s just ignorant to the shortcomings of the Order as a whole.

One of the biggest things that bothers me really is that in Episode III, Obi-Wan maims Anakin to win the fight, YES he did warn him, but he did this and then just left him there to suffer a horrible death by burning alive made even worse when he didn’t actually die. Obi-Wan makes excuses for this, and even in Episode IV, still doesn’t take responsibility. No wonder Vader is so pissed off especially if one takes into account the rumor that Palpatine had rigged Vader’s surgery to keep him in perpetual pain and therefore below Palpatine in power. Not that Vader was trying to get away but still.

In comparison to that last, in the Episode IV Death Star confrontation, Vader actually grants Obi-Wan a much swifter end with a single swing of his lightsaber. Vader is a Sith but of the two, he gave the more humane end and to someone who he saw as an enemy, not to mention that Obi-Wan actually used this to manipulate Luke against Vader because he only stopped fighting after he saw Luke watching. At least Luke calls him out on this in Episode VI after he finds out the truth about Vader. I can argue the possibility that Padme may have gotten through to Anakin on Mustafar but we won’t ever know because Obi-Wan essentially betrayed her trust too by secretly stowing away on her ship, which is what caused Vader to turn on her. 

Excuse my rant, but this is something in the fandom that bugs the ever loving heck out of me. It isn’t anti-ANYONE(except Palpatine), but some have their flaws and bad decisions glossed over and are made to look like perfect saints while others are made to look like horrid horrid people for daring to not agree with Obi-Wan and his decisions/opinions. Anakin was attacked since the prequels were made and I don’t agree with most of what people say, but I don’t understand where the sudden Qui-Gon bashing came from. Even several posts made “to remember Padme” are just covers to bash Anakin instead. 

Off topic now, but some of the bashing of Anakin is getting out of hand. I found one where someone created a photoshop of Owen’s (deserved) remark against Obi-Wan in “Kenobi” and warping it to him making it against Anakin about not saving Shmi and someone else in the comments declared that it “was deserved! lol!!” Um no. It wasn’t and if anyone was to blame for that aside from the Tuskan Raiders, it was technically Cliegg Lars for letting her go out alone. But I digress.  

i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers

you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.

AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character

see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.

mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.

(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:

"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"

LU WIND BUT HE'S A ITTY BITTY HUMMINGBIRD

Slingshot Proficiency!

+bonus doodle drafts

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 1: Dread on Arrival

(Part 2)

mask off 💀

it turns out i'm a little soft hippy centrist shitlib after all: i don't like it when civilians get killed. i am beholden to the idea that life is sacred, holy, and inviolable, that civilians are innocent no matter how much you do not like them. i am against cruelty—i have always been against it— and i believe that informs my understanding of the past and present: i am against the apartheid state and the blockade, i am against the ongoing carpet bombing of gaza. i will not cheer with you when dead bodies get dragged and spat on in the street, i do not think it is a moment of liberation when children get kidnapped and beaten. because i am against cruelty i do not celebrate shooting up 250 stupid concert goers. because of the principles i hold i don't like it when israel murders children, as it has done so in the last 48 hours, with the world's support. i do not support a government that kills over 200 innocents with impunity in retaliation. i do not understand what massacres justify which other massacres. it is barbaric to deny clean water and basic medicine to children; it is barbaric to shoot them, it is not a revolution. i don't like the kahanists and their state that led to this and i don't like hamas. i will not support the state of israel—i never have—and the impending invasion of gaza, instigated by two groups of fascist religious fundamentalists. i think cheering any part of this tragedy atrocious. but now i've gone and pulled a both-sides!

i want you to look at what's happening as a real act and not a media event where you pick the side that's convenient for your team. set aside the outrage, look at the people dying, and think of each life, that holds so much and is a miracle in itself. try to understand the immense tragedy of what it means for that to be cut short. do you not value life? does your value of life inform your politics? do you not support palestinians because you value life?

i’ve consistently posted about how opposed i am to violence targeting bystanders, the terror and bloodshed it achieves and nothing else. the history of the twentieth century, still unfolding around us, tells me that much. if you are celebrating, you are either an idiot, consumed by online politics, or you have lost some sense of humanity; look around—look carefully—and try to preserve it instead

day 28: made you smile ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

hey americans, please fucking vote this year! thanks!

signed,

the rest of the world

TUMBLR ARTIST SPOTLIGHTS~~

oooooo yes, already famous artists I know abouttttt

how niiiiiceeeee

woooooo

not at all disheartening as a 30+ artist who's never risen to internet popularity to be featured

wooooooooo

It is my sincerest and unironic belief that we must invest in preserving "old technology." The more we move to a hegemonic, easily-surveilled way of living, the worse we will find this world to be.

Letters, public phones and transport, cash, and so much more are key to ensuring both freedom of movement and information, but also to combat the surveillance state. We need to preserve the ability to both access the world but also to be untraceable. I truly hope more people start to recognize this. It isn't about nostalgia for the past. It is about ensuring that we are actually afforded freedom, from the richest person to the person who lives on the sidewalk.

i told a friend that knows nothing about dc that robins bf thinks batman is a demogorgon and he laughed for 5 minutes straight so i decided i am a bernard truther now

why cant he dress though

Despite herself, the Emma is wooed